Wednesday, September 01, 2010

"But the fact that Wal-Mart now sells organic food makes me proud. Organic has become mainstream."

Honestly, I can't remember if we're supposed to love John Mackey because his Whole Food Stores are so awesome, or hate John Mackey because of his politics. Conflicts, huh? But hey! Look at this:

"A new animal welfare rating program will be in all stores by Jan. 1. Signs will tell customers exactly how meat animals were raised."

In a way: yay! In another way: yuck. Do I want to read the bio of something I'm going to eat?

This, though, is a nice bit of perspective: "Whole Foods has always been a synthesis of healthy foods and foods for pleasure. ... Over our history, it seems, in 10-year cycles, one of those waxes and the other wanes. When we began, we were healthy foods. Around 1991, we began to evolve to food as pleasure. Now, food as health is beginning to wax again. It's not that we'll stop selling pleasurable foods. But we'll put greater emphasis on food as a health product."